


John chapter nineteen, verse thirty

by finefeatheredfriend



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Alternate Canon, Bible Quotes, Character Death, Death penalty, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Lethal Injection, Sad Ending, The Collapse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-08 17:29:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20839304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finefeatheredfriend/pseuds/finefeatheredfriend
Summary: Jacob Seed makes a final sacrifice for his brothers. No one could have known the world would end the day he died.“Jacob Seed, leader of the Project at Eden’s Gate,” read a small file sitting on a metal tray to one side of Jacob’s gurney. Joseph touched the file gingerly, muttering under his breath.“'Pilate answered, ‘What I have written, I have written.’'”“What was that?” Jacob asked hoarsely.“I have John chapter nineteen on my mind, brother,” Joseph explained, smiling sadly at Jacob.





	John chapter nineteen, verse thirty

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Whore of Babylon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20325931) by [SpaceGoat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceGoat/pseuds/SpaceGoat). 

> I will preface this by saying that this is in no way, shape, or form a happy story. It is sad. It was hard to write. Take the trigger warnings seriously if you're in a bad place.
> 
> TW: Lethal injection  
TW: Death penalty  
TW: Diagnosis of terminal disease  
TW: Description of catheterization and injection of drugs  
TW: Mention of past drug use
> 
> I was inspired by SpaceGoat's brilliant story about John being interviewed in prison, as well as the song "I Drive Your Truck," and, of course, the Bible verse that is the title of this fic.  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

No one could have known the world would end the day Jacob Seed died.

Tears fell hot and heavy down Rook’s face as she drove away from the prison. Joseph was weeping next to her, making the grimness of her circumstances entirely worse.

“It should have been me,” he sobbed, his nose running, one hand covering his face, the other holding his scratched yellow sunglasses.

“Shut up,” John snapped from the backseat of Jacob’s old truck. There was change still left in the ashtray and a “Go Army” t-shirt had been pulled over the driver’s seat to cover the massive hole in the cloth on the backrest. “Shut up, for once in your life, Joseph. Just _shut up_. And tell the Voice to shut up too,” he added bitterly, his features twisted into a look of agony, his sharp blue eyes chips of ice as his short nails dug into his own flesh, a comfort against other, worse pains. A half-drunk bottle of hazy, discolored blue Gatorade rolled around on the floor, long expired. If one looked closely, they could still see the faint imprint of Jacob’s lips on the rim of the decade-old bottle. His truck had been sitting in a garage for nearly ten years and the engine was running roughly, loud and grinding. The body of its owner sat heavily in a body bag in the bed of the faded red truck. Rook clenched her jaw until her teeth squeaked. She would have nightmares tonight, she knew. She would have nightmares every night for the rest of her life, she thought, remembering the life leave Jacob’s eyes.

\--------------------------------------

“Hey, pup,” Jacob had rasped out, the orange of his prison jumpsuit clashing awkwardly with the reddish-orange of his now-graying hair, though it made his blue eyes look even more blue in the clinical fluorescent lights of the prison. “I guess John pulled some strings.”

“More than you know. I don’t think it’s ever been done before. Friends and family in the room when they…” her voice trailed off with an odd, choked sound. He hummed.

“Yeah, well, it’s either that or the lung cancer. Either way I’m a dead man,” he said nonchalantly, his fingertips meeting in a steepled gesture. A chain connected his wrists together by two polished metal cuffs and that chain urgently clung to yet another around his waist. “Can’t believe those dumb fucks fell for all this, to be honest.”

“Your brother is a very good lawyer,” Rook said simply. Another hum.

“I’m proud of him.”

“You should be. He’s the best liar I’ve ever met.” He frowned.

“You don’t seem very happy about this.”

“Why should I be? Rachel is…gone. John and Joseph both spent five years in a psychiatric hospital and you’ve been in here for ten years, rotting, waiting to die. Nothing about that is happy. None of it screams ‘justice’ or ‘closure,’ not to me, not the Ryes, not the Armstrongs, not to anyone. And there are a lot of people who want _all_ of you dead still.”

“But?”

“But I’m not one of them. You know that already. You knew that the day I resigned my post as deputy. So maybe Joseph’s timing was off, but the Collapse is still coming,” she said, voice sure. “Joseph says he still hears the Voice. We have to be ready. But we wanted you there, too.” Jacob shrugged.

“I’m tired, pup. I’m ready to be in the ground.”

“Jacob.”

“I’m serious, pup. Dead, in the ground, eaten by maggots, I don’t give a shit. Lung cancer is painful, you know,” he reminded her before he had a hacking fit as though to prove his point. When his hand pulled away from his mouth after the bout of coughing, there was blood splattered on it. Rook sighed, one elbow on the table, the hand attached to that arm massaging her temple restlessly. “You look good,” Jacob rumbled.

“Don’t. Don’t do that.” He reached a chained hand out, but it was halted by the lock it was strung through on the cold table top. Rook pulled her hands away anyway, avoiding his touch, looking away guiltily as she sat her hands on her lap instead of the table.

“Pup,” his gravelly voice was soft. Her eyes flickered up sadly. His hand was still held out, straining against the cuffs and chains, palm upwards in a gesture of supplication. “Please. You loved me once.”

“I never stopped loving you, Jacob. But I never agreed that you should take all the blame. I never…” Her voice cracked abruptly and she cleared her throat, blinked rapidly to clear the sheen of tears that had formed, unbidden. She met his blue eyes, her heart breaking again as she saw the ache there, the want, the pain. “I never wanted you to convince a jury that you were behind this all. I never wanted you to take the fall for your brothers. Convincing everyone, with John’s help, that you orchestrated everything, that you took advantage of Joseph’s,” she used air quotes, “‘mental illness,’ that you manipulated a little brother fraught with psychological wounds into doing your bidding.” She scoffed bitterly. “You sacrificed yourself, for what?”

“I am _Joseph’s_ sacrifice. You know that. It’s my purpose.”

“And what about _my_ purpose?” she growled, her voice rough with emotion. “What about me?” His fingers curled into his palm like a flower withering.

“I’m sorry. But my brother can’t die in prison, Rook. His purpose is to save as many people as will listen. You know that too.”

“There had to have been another way,” she argued, stubborn, shaking her head as she pressed her lips together hard to capture a sob that was trying to escape her throat. Jacob sighed, coughed.

“I wish there was. But you and I both knew this day was coming. You and I were both there when Dr. Allen looked at my scans years ago. We both knew the remission was temporary, that all the chemicals I was exposed to overseas would catch up to me one day. I’m lucky I got as much time as I did, though I would have preferred to spend the years I had with you instead of in this shithole.” He sighed, looking absently around the blank room. He met her gaze again, features softening. “I’ve only got a few months left even if they didn’t execute me, pup. The doctors here aren’t great, but even they can recognize a stage four small cell carcinoma on an x-ray, Rook.” He opened his fingers again, the clipped nails clean and much tidier than he ever bothered to keep them when he was a free man, but the callouses from years of hard work were still there, were still familiar.

Abruptly, swallowing a sob, Rook took Jacob’s hand with both of hers, leaning down toward the table to kiss his hand. He cupped it around her cheek, shushing her, offering her comfort as she cried.

“I love you,” she murmured.

“I know, pup. I know. I love you too. Hell, maybe Joseph and John are right. Maybe you’ll see me after. Maybe Rachel and I will come haunt you if we get bored playing our harps and sitting on clouds.” He chuckled, but his eyes were swimming with tears too. “How much time do I have?” he asked softly. “There’s no clock in here.” Rook glanced at her watch, one of the few things she had been allowed to keep on her person when stepping into the prison.

“They’ll be coming to get you soon. Joseph and John…”

“Were already here,” he told her, squeezing her hand. “I saved the best for last.” There was a knock at the door a while later. Ignoring the protest of the guard, Rook stepped around the table, smashing her lips to Jacob’s violently, fisting her fingers into his hair, leaving him breathless and her feeling empty, longing for what might have been.

Two hours later, Jacob was rolled into the execution suite on a gurney, breathing quickly, tugging the restraints. He knew it was time to die, but the scared animal in him had to put up at least some fight.

It was fortunate for him that John, regardless of his time in a psychological prison, still had friends in very high places. What they were doing was unheard of – family and friends in the room with a prisoner who was being executed? It had never been done in modern prisons. But then again, the State of Montana hadn’t put a man to death since 1996. There were many firsts happening today.

“_Jacob Seed, leader of the Project at Eden’s Gate_,” read a small file sitting on a metal tray to one side of Jacob’s gurney. Joseph touched the file gingerly, muttering under his breath.

“'Pilate answered, ‘What I have written, I have written.’'”

“What was that?” Jacob asked hoarsely.

“I have John chapter nineteen on my mind, brother,” Joseph explained, smiling sadly at Jacob. Jacob chuckled.

“Afraid I’ve forgotten that one from Sunday school, Joe,” he said wryly. Joseph straightened his glasses on his long nose.

“The crucifixion of Jesus,” Joseph clarified. Jacob met his eyes intently, swallowed.

“I do this gladly,” Jacob promised him again, but Joseph flicked his gaze away from his brother’s eyes, looking ashamed.

Joseph, John and Rook gathered around the eldest Seed as the medical attendants brought in IV lines and a bag of saline and a tray of syringes. Rook took Jacob’s hand, ignoring the hooded medical attendant that swabbed his arm with alcohol. It was clinical. Cold. Distant. Two IVs were placed, one in each arm. The attendants flushed saline into the lines to ensure they were in the veins. Jacob shivered as the attendants moved around the room silently, preparing their weapons of death.

“I’m cold, Rook,” he murmured.

“I know,” she said, trying not to break down again. One of the attendants pulled a curtain aside to reveal what appeared to be a mirror on one side of the room. Rook knew from her time as a law enforcement officer that it was one-way glass, knew that the Ryes and a few other families from Hope County sat on the other side of it staring in like wolves. She looked over at it blankly and then back to Jacob. A tear escaped one of his eyes, trickling down his cheek.

“I’m scared,” he whispered. Joseph swallowed loudly enough that Rook could hear it. He reached a thin hand up to put it on Jacob’s shoulder. Jacob looked to his brother. “Take care of her, Joseph.”

“I will. Anything she needs she will have. I will see you in Eden, my brother.” Jacob nodded feebly, doubt on his face. John was silent, but tears were flowing down his cheeks and lingering in his thick beard. Whatever John had needed to say to his brother had already been said outside this room that reeked of death. Jacob looked to him.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for you when you were younger, John. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you from the Duncans. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you both. I…” his eyes flickered around the room as he gathered his thoughts. “I did my best,” he finished, meeting each of their eyes, ending on Rook’s. She squeezed his hand to comfort him, praying that someone would intervene, praying that this was a dream, begging God to let her please wake up in the chalet, sweaty and covered in her own filth, all of this just another one of Jacob’s fucking tests.

“It’s time,” the warden said over intercom. “Family of Mr. Seed, please step back so that we may proceed. If you have any final words you wish to have recorded, now is the time, Mr. Seed.” Jacob chuckled, met Rook’s eyes.

“I love you, pup. I’ll see you on the other side. _Only you_,” he began to sing softly, “_can make all this world seem right…”_ Rook shuddered, feeling the odd tugging sensation in her brain that the song always made her feel. Jacob smiled that heartbreaking smile of his and continued to sing, but as he neared the end of the song, he nodded to the attendants. They pushed the plungers of their syringes and Rook covered her mouth with a hand, watching Jacob first go rigid and then relax, opening his mouth once in a desperate gasp for air before his face went slack and his eyes, momentarily full of terror, went distant.

\---------------------------------------------

“We’ll bury him in the mountains,” Rook whispered, her knuckles white on the steering wheel of his truck. Jacob’s dog tags and rabbit’s foot swung rhythmically from the rearview mirror, a pendulum of despair. Joseph was praying next to her in a quiet voice, tears still flowing from his eyes freely. John was sitting like an angel of death in the backseat, breathing roughly, running fingers over track marks covered with tattoos. Devastation reigned supreme within the cab of the truck that still smelled like Jacob, a mixture of pine sap, and wet dog, and cheap deodorant.

It was nothing compared to the devastation that was about to be unleashed upon the earth.

There was a sudden blinding flash of light and a boom that rattled the truck and shattered windows in every building nearby. Rook overcorrected the truck against the shockwave and it fishtailed wildly. She struggled to get it back under control and slammed on the brakes, stopping in the middle of the road, breathing hard.

John’s pupils constricted in terror as he leaned forward intently, grasping at Joseph’s shoulder.

“When he had received the drink, he said, “It is finished.” With that, Jesus bowed his head, and gave up his spirit.’” Joseph quoted from the Gospel of John in a soft murmur, staring placidly at the massive mushroom cloud on the horizon. He met Rook’s eyes after a moment, sadness and elation competing for expression on his sharp features. “It is finished.”

Civil defense alarms began to wail as Rook drove through Deer Lodge, Montana, the prison a distant red building behind them.

No one could have known the world would end the day Jacob Seed died.


End file.
